


Johnny Get Your Guns

by Trash_Queen



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Character Death, Smoking, TAZ dust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 19:21:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14002923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash_Queen/pseuds/Trash_Queen
Summary: “I’m the kind of person who you get to be friends with if you pay. Not the kind of girl.”“Interesting distinction.”“Well...There’s a different between a gun and a girl, you know. I’m a gun.”





	Johnny Get Your Guns

**Author's Note:**

> i like TAZ and im really feelin the dust arc rn so here are some oc's and a pre-cannon one shot i guess ? also im just making shit up as to what happened before the actual story idk if there's any official cannon or anything or how long ago that river dried up but my idea is that it's been years and i'm sticking to it

Nobody had remembered when Salo had come to Dry River. Before it dried up, probably- no one could say, and no one who knew would, if asked. She had just sort of, been there. Someone fitting her description always having been around, somewhere or another. Behind a bar, squatting under the bridge, at the mine. Tall, dark, no-longer-strange stranger.

People did remember when Justine came to town. As the river dried up, back when Judd was the man around town as it was dying, vying for power with the fangs and the furs.

Tonight, the town would remember both of them in the Sterling. That was where it started, and, at present, where it was ending.

When it started, a short time ago, Justine walked into the Sterling for a meal. The last stop on an ill-planned journey, her last threadbareopportunity, when she ended up at the same table as Salo.

Salo sat at the same end of the bar they used to eat at now, fangs in front of her, fur behind the other end of the counter, watching them cagily, Justine by the bar. Her face was carefully blank.

_ “Mind if I sit?” _

_ Salo looked up at the newcomer standing beside her; Tawny hair pulled back into a braid, clothes worn but cared for, a suitcase stowed behind the bar. For upstairs. Newcomer looked at her cautiously, judging her black hair and blue coat, and the pistol at her hip no doubt. _

_ “Free bar,” She leaned back. “Have a seat. New in town?” _

_ “For now. I’m Justine.” _

_ “Pleasure,” Salo turned back to face the room, back to the bar, cigarette in hand. _

_ “Your name is?” _

_ Salo glanced back at Justine; round face looking back at her, suntanned. An honest, salt-of-the-earth face. _

_ “Just so you know, I’m not everyone’s friend. That’s not the way I work around here.” _

_ Justine replied with raised eyebrows, ‘What way do your work’ unspoken. _

_ “I’m not friends with everyone,” She clarified. _

_ “Who are you friends with, then?” _

_ “I’m your friend if you can afford to pay me,” She took a drag off her cigarette. _

_ “You don’t look like one of those girls.” _

_ “I’m not one of those girls.” _

_ Justine’s attention turned to the plate of food that was placed in front of her, completely missing the look that the bartender gave her. _

_ “What kind of girl are you, then?” The question was hidden in half-baked shepard’s pie. _

_ “I’m the kind of person who you get to be friends with if you pay. Not the kind of girl.” _

_ “Interesting distinction.” _

_ Salo glanced at the plate. The pie was already half gone. _

_ “Well,” Another drag on her cigarette. “There’s a different between a gun and a girl, you know. I’m a gun.” _

The rest was an oily slope to here and now; Judd was gone. Salo gunned him down, just minutes ago, when the whole rivalry between him and some fangs vying for power came to a head. I’m your friend if you can afford to pay me. Fleshes can’t afford to pay anymore, it would seem. Not as much as fangs. Salo sat, calm and unusually cigarets-less at the end of the bar, dripping blood and watching the men and women watching her. Forehead and lip split, shot in the shoulder. The fight that they had killed him in had done her no favors.

_ “I can’t afford to pay you,” Justine sat at the same seat again, weeks later; Salo sat beside her, separated by a glass of whiskey and a soda. “Not on a miner’s salary, but… I’d like to think we could be friends.” _

_ “You’d like to think, huh?” _

_ “Friends sit at bars,” Justine pointed out. “Friends drink together.” _

_ Salo sank back into her chair a millimeter more. Justine leaned further into her elbow, watching sharp eyes and black hair and a pointed profile take her in out of the side of its’ eye. _

_ “They definitely do.” _

_ Later, when they fell onto Justine’s rickety bed above the Sterling, Salo told Justine her name. _

“I guess you’re getting your advance back, huh?” Salo asked the fang standing just out of arms reach in front of her. He was tall, had beady eyes and a calculating face. He looked more like an accountant than a gangster. Justine didn’t know his name.

“We have all come to the decision,” He said, gesturing back to the rest of them when he said ‘we all’, “That we cannot trust someone who can’t be trusted.”

“How poetic,” Salo rolled her eyes. “You can’t trust someone who you won’t have the silver to pay off-“ She shook her head. “And we all know, soon you won’t have the silver to pay me off.”

“You did shoot your former employer in the street.” The man pointed out; His face twitched a bit when she mentioned 'no silver'. “Like a dog.”

“I played by the rules. And they’re not my rules. You know that. All of you, always knew that.”

The man just shrugged.

“I, for one, don’t see how I’m the problem here.” Salo kept talking. Justine saw the stress creeping in, manifesting in tight but square shoulders, a hight point in her chin; in not looking at her. “This is all just business.”

“We admire your commitment to your enterprise-”

Salo’s gun rested in her hand, on top of the bar. She picked it up, just a touch, testing the weight. Still empty.

“You have to understand, Ms. Salo, we are committed to our enterprise as well. Freelancers can be a benefit to our business, on occasion. More often than not, they’re a threat.” Teeth came out on the word ‘threat’. Sharp, yellowed. "It's just business."

Salo just grinned, looking over to the bartender.

“Still sell tobacco?”

The bartender nodded, eyes not leaving the fang. “Which kind you need?”

“How 'bout the cloves? Just the one.”

Salo left the empty gun on the counter and took the slim cigarette that was pulled from a white box. She placed it between her lips and pulled out her lighter, humming when she inhaled the first bit of smoke. The next drag was deeper, the escaping cloud of smoke obscuring the rest of her face as her mouth split into a wide grin.

“Well? Fire me already, you son of a bitch.”


End file.
